Kurosegawa Terrane in Southwest Japan: Disrupted Remnants of a Gondwana-Derived Terrane

Abstract

The Kurosegawa Terrane is an anomalous, disrupted, Paleozoic and Mesozoic lithotectonic assemblage characterized by fragments of continent and continental margins. It is located in Southwest Japan where it lies between two Mesozoic subduction complex terranes. The Kurosegawa Terrane is an exotic and far-travelled geologic entity with respect to its present position. Limestones of the Kurosegawa Terrane formed along a continental margin yield fusulinacean fossils Cancellina, Colania and Lepidolina. Accordingly, the Kurosegawa Terrane was once situated within the Colania-Lepidolina territory in the East Tethys-Panthalassa region at a palaeo-equatorial latitude, possibly close to the eastern margin of the South China and/or Indochina-East Malaya continental blocks. These blocks had rifted from Gondwana by late Devonian. They drifted northwards, passing through the Colania-Lepidolina territory in mid-Permian time, and amalgamated with the proto-Asian continent during the late Triassic. Subsequently, during the Cretaceous, parts of the allochthonous continental blocks and their associated tectonic collage were transpressed, dispersed, and displaced from the southeastern periphery of Asia towards the north. As a result, the Kurosegawa Terrane is formed as a disrupted allochthonous terrane, characterized by a serpentinite melange zone, lying between the adjoining Mesozoic subduction complex terranes.